Valve announces an updated Steam Subscriber Agreement, becoming the latest company to attempt to avoid potential class action lawsuits by prohibiting them as a term of service. Here is their explanation of this:

Weíre also introducing a new dispute resolution process that will benefit you and Valve. Recently, a number of companies have created similar provisions which have generated lots of discussion from customers and communities, and weíve been following these discussions closely. On Steam, whenever a customer is unhappy with any transaction, our first goal is to resolve things as quickly as possible through the normal customer support process. However in those instances in which we can't resolve a dispute, we've outlined a new required process whereby we agree to use arbitration or small claims court to resolve the dispute. In the arbitration process, Valve will reimburse your costs of the arbitration for claims under a certain amount. Reimbursement by Valve is provided regardless of the arbitratorís decision, provided that the arbitrator does not determine the claim to be frivolous or the costs unreasonable.

Most significant to the new dispute resolution terms is that customers may now only bring individual claims, not class action claims. We considered this change very carefully. Itís clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions donít provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims. Class actions like these do not benefit us or our communities. We think this new dispute resolution process is faster and better for you and Valve while avoiding unnecessary costs, and that it will therefore benefit the community as a whole.

Prez wrote on Aug 1, 2012, 14:34:That's a fair question. In general I find it a pretty shady practice, though in Steam's case, it is a moot point really. The reason being if Valve were to suddenly lock me out of my account and rob me of access to the several thousand dollars worth of games I can just play the warez versions. It's a safety net that makes me less worried about purchasing and owning digital media.

With companies underpinning more and more online functionality into the games I really worry about even the reliability of the "warez" backup method. The distinction that you just license Steam and it grants you access to other licenses inside of it needs to be revisited in my opinion. I think its totally fair for Origin/Steam/whatever to tell me that I need to accept their agreement to purchase new titles or whatever but cutting off all access to your existing library seems not only unreasonable but on tenuous legal ground in many countries. It's only been an issue in very isolated events so far thankfully.